Rapture Rises in Lego - UPDATED

A Lego builder by the name of Imagine Rigney has created a plastic brick cross-section of Rapture that would make Andrew Ryan himself stand back and say, "Wow, dude, that's some nice work."

Rapture, as we all know, is a city under the sea, which means it's a pretty big place, difficult to adequately replicate in Lego. But matters of scale didn't stop Imagine Rigney from going to work on the crumbling dystopia and bringing to Lego-life the world of BioShock in all its shattered glory.

The attention to detail here is absolutely astonishing, from the Big Daddies and Little Sisters roaming the blue-tinted corridors to the miniature posters advertising Eve, Atlas and of course the 1959 Masquerade Ball. It really is a stunning creation. Pity there's not a little Lego guy with a busted Callaway sticking out of his ear, but I guess you can't have everything. More of Rigney's impressive work can be found at MOCpages or on his Flickr page.

UPDATE: It's patently obvious that as cool as this Lego Rapture is, there's one thing that could make it even cooler: submersion! And since little plastic bricks are entirely immune to the deleterious effects of water, it struck me as a not-entirely-bad idea. So I asked the builder what he thought of it.

"It probably could be submerged slowly. I have it wired for lighting though and would have to take the LEDs out first, but with a big enough tank it might work," Rigney said.

But while it would be at least briefly awesome, there would almost certainly be trouble in the long run. "The problem would be some of the lighter elements like the minifigs and interior details. Those would probably try floating away," he explained. "And then just the pressure of the water might start to cause the walls to want to separate. Not sure how long it would hold up."

He agreed that submerging his mini-Rapture would give it "a whole new dimension," but also made it pretty clear that he's not too terribly interested in actually doing it. "I was hoping the lighting I added to the 'water ceiling' gave enough of an underwater mood that I wouldn't have to consider actually putting it in water," he said.